Kansas City Power and Light Hawthorne coal train at Morrill, NE

The engineer has the horn blasting as train TT109 rolls through Morrill on May 18, 1992. Just before the train arrived, an eighteen wheeler had driven up the road between the main line and the side track in the foreground. The truck stopped just short of the railroad crossing to close the doors on the trailer when the train arrived. There was just enough clearance that the train missed hitting the truck trailer. It did get my heart rate elevated. The train had engines 5052, 7881, Oakway 9004, and 9033.

After loading, this will go to the Kansas City Power and Light Hawthorne plant. An explosion at the plant at 12:30AM on Feb. 17, 1999 reduced the eleven story structure to a five story pile of rubble. Fortunately, no one was seriously injured. The plant was down for routine maintenance at the time, so it did not cause a power outage. Damage was limited to the boiler area. There was little damage to the turbine generator area or the coal yard. The plant was rebuilt by Babcock & Wilcox as a 550 megawatt plant in a mere 22 months (the industry standard is 36 months). It is now equipped with an advanced selective catalytic reduction system making it one of the nation's cleanest coal-fired power plants. Disk 82